REVIEW: Joan Jett is great at MDA Ride for Life event in Bethlehem. It's simple logic

May 05, 2013|By John J. Moser, Of The Morning Call

It's simple logic.

Joan Jett loves rock and roll.

I love rock and rock.

Therefore, I loved Joan Jett & The Blackhearts as headliner at the opening day of the MDA Ride For Life event at Levitt Pavilion SteelStacks in Bethlehem.

Jett was everything a rock and roll show should be.

She started fast out of the gate with three of her biggest songs – her first solo single, "Bad Reputation"; the hit "Cherry Bomb" from her first group, the female seminal punk band The Runaways; and her 1982 Top 20 cover of the Gary Glitter song "Do You Wanna Touch."

All three were played as they should be -- blasts of rock, full of energy, at damned-the-torpedoes speed. In fact, that approach didn't flag throughout her 65-minute set. That was one of the reason she was able to squeeze in 16 songs, even with song and band introductions and audience interaction.

Dressed in a glittery red jumpsuit and guitar worn gunslinger low, Jett offered her music straight-forward in the way punk should be played.

And that's what made the show so good. Well, that and the fact that it was sung and played so well.

Jett growled and ground out the lyrics with conviction and abandon, and on a couple songs, such as the very good new "Reality Mentality," she even hopped and bounced like a punk – again, not an affectation, but seemingly caught up in the music she was playing.

The four-man Blackhearts were tight and talented, especially drummer Tommy Price, whose beat throughout the night was steady and solid but wild at the same time.

Jett played a healthy does of new material – six songs -- and one of the most encouraging things was how good it is. "Make It Back" was nice and punky, "Soul Mates to Strangers" strong and solid. Even the lessor of the new tunes, "Fragile," was a Ramones-like blast that was good because of its authenticity.

That came through loud and clear on the new "T.M.I.," a riff-y, march-y song that showed Jett still has a great punk voice and punk delivery. And "Reality Mentality," with a great beat, shows that Jett's still writing real punk rock.

Perhaps the most poignant was the new "Hard to Grow Up," which talks about maturation in an inherently juvenile musical world. It had hard-rock riffs and a punk sensibility, and Jett gleefully attacked its high notes in her singing.

But she also played music spanning her career, including The Runaways' tune "You Drive Me Wild" – the first song Jett ever wrote – and she still sang it with conviction. "Love Is Pain," a deeper cut from her breakthrough 1981 solo disc "I Love Rock 'n' Roll," still held up, and stood up with the others. And the band was ripping.

She closed the set with more of her biggest hits – her signature "I Love Rock 'n' Roll," faster, looser and less stinging than the original – though Jett played a good lead guitar – and with the crowd of something above 2,500 singing loudly along.

And then a simply great "Crimson and Clover," maybe the best song of the night as Jett's singing was stinging, and "I Hate Myself for Loving You," with Price's drumming slamming it home.

Jett opened her encore with "A Hundred Feet Away," a deeper cut from her 1983 disc "Album" that reminded that punk also had a nicer side, and closed with her Top 40 cover of Sly and the Family Stones' "Everyday People." Jett belted and growled out the song around a guitar solo centerpiece.

At 54, Jett remains a punk – more than any of her contemporaries (what few there are left) and certainly more authentically than even the best of the latter wave of punks such as Green Day. She plays her unchanged, unaffected and unapologetically.